Sennen Conte and his family have a history of eating well – and taking risks.
His brother, Galen Conte, worked a Fortune 500 sales job before starting a business selling pumpkin seeds in 2003. The inspiration came from Sennen and Galen’s parents – who encouraged natural, homemade cooking – and the overwhelming response the family’s roasted pumpkin seeds received during a Halloween party.
“Everyone gobbled them up. So Galen went from there to basically looking into a business, and he incorporated it,” Sennen said.
That gamble morphed into what is known today as Gerbs Allergy Friendly Foods, which Sennen and Galen co-own, at 92 Allendale Ave. in Johnston.
More than 15 years later, the U.S. Small Business Administration honored their hard work this past month with an award for Rhode Island and New England Small Business Manufacturer.
According to the SBA, more than half of all Americans work for or own a small business, and two-thirds of new jobs created each year are at small businesses.
“It was beyond humbling,” Sennen said of the recognition. “When I wrote the quick ‘thank you,’ it was obviously thanking my parents, my in-laws – who did everything for us to get to this point – thanking my brother, who started this … What was great was we’re a manufacturer, so that’s a huge piece. Rhode Island has a ton of food and beverage manufacturing. The scene is wicked hip.”
Sennen, who came on board in 2006 in a sales and marketing role, said he and Galen eventually made the decision to switch from selling to grocery stores and distributors and instead focus on selling their products online. The brand was in 170 Whole Foods stores at that point, and was also found in other local chains or stores.
However, they recognized the slotting fees to get product on the shelves, shipping loss fees, distributor fees and brokerage costs when evaluating their future growth. They settled on a six-to-eight-month phase-out to switch to a straight and direct online model.
The process involved telling vendors that Gerbs would be puling its goods off the shelves, and Sennen described their reactions as “befuddled.”
“It was beyond risky … looking back at it, I’m sure they were probably saying, ‘You’re out of your mind,’” he said. “Now those same kind of companies come to us and ask how we did it and how can we help them. We had so many people help us along the way, so we have no problem picking up the phone and helping a local company.”
The gambit started with Amazon, but Gerbs now also sells on its own website, eBay and the newly added Walmart. He said Gerbs sends a trailer of product to Amazon every week, right from the Johnston warehouse it has occupied since 2009.
He said the model has allowed Gerbs to become more adept in targeting online sales.
“The millennial generation is a huge buyer online,” Sennen said. “The metrics of people ordering on their cell phones or tablets is off the charts. Every month it’s like beating itself, so your website has to be sophisticated.”
Sennen also takes pride in the fact that Gerbs’ products are “top-14 free.” That term means foods are free of a number of allergens, including gluten, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, egg, milk, lupine, casein, crustaceans, fish, shellfish, mustard and sesame.
The brand name changed to Gerbs Allergy Friendly Foods, and the expansion began.
“What you typically find with a food allergy family, based on the severity of it, is the family really is learning to function and live with that allergy,” Sennen said. “If you have a deadly peanut allergy or your daughter does, you're not bringing home anything really with peanuts. That’s kind of where we come in to play to help those families. It really is what drives us.”
He said that pumpkin seeds continue to be the top sellers, which is reasonable for a business whose legal name is Gerbs Pumpkin Seeds Company. Sunflower, chia, flax and hemp seeds are also lucrative, as well as the more than 30 dried fruits Gerbs offers.
He touched on the company’s homemade granola, and teased an array of four new butters coming down the pipeline. He and his brother would also like to team up with a local farm to produce a line of jellies.
At mygerbs.com, customers can add items to their cart and schedule a pickup at the warehouse. Despite losing the personal aspect of conducting demos at grocery stores, Sennen said he still loses a half-hour to conversation when customers come in to pick up an order.
“I always talked to our customers, bounce ideas off them, and you kind of lose a little bit of that when you're online,” he said. “Obviously, we get tons of phone calls and emails from customers.”
Sennen said a dedication to allergy-free food is borne of wanting to help families live a safer and easier lifestyle.
“All too often those people are bullied or intimidated based on whatever their allergy is, and it’s challenging,” he said. “As a father, when you hear that kids are bullied, that an average kid is bullied, a lot of the bullying even comes as humor, sarcasm from even teachers or coaches or whoever – ‘Oh, we can’t have cupcakes because of Billy’ – and it’s just messed up. So that’s where we come into play.”
As Sennen sat in his office, holding the company’s recent SBA award in his hands, it’s safe to say Gerbs’ gambles have paid off thus far.
“The growth, with any small business, people just think, ‘Oh, it’s a lot of fun,’ or something like that,” he said. “They don't see the crazy hours, the hard work, the failure – how many times you fell down [only] to pick yourself up. What we do now, in a few weeks, is what the company used to do in a year.”
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